Another Auto Cover Question

[Kjp300]

Yesterday was a terrible day for weather in our area. 5 inches of rain in 5 hours. As a matter of fact, our little town of Canfield, OH flooded yesterday as streams broke over their banks. Lots of damage in the area.

I have an auto cover, and watched as my cover filled with water very quickly and overcame the cover pump. For most of the time, the cover pump was completely submerged. It was working, but in no way could it keep up with the deluge. Once the rain stopped, it took over an hour for the pump to pump all of the water off of the cover.

So my question is that if I know heavy storms are coming, is it better to open the cover and deal with a dirty pool? Or keep the cover closed and risk the weight damaging my cover? How much weight can these covers hold anyway?

The cover does not seem to be damaged. It opened and closed. When I opened the cover today, the water was beautiful, while I am sure others in my area with pools dealt with cloudy and murky water.

So what is the best option?

Thanks!

 

[avspin]

When it rains hard or for a while I leave my cover open so I don't have to drag out the pump to take the water off before opening. Never had an issue with the rain changing my chemistry.

 

[amfrench]

New pool owner here, searching through some threads to try to educate myself a bit.

No words of wisdom, just saying hello from Poland, OH! =)
Looks like we still have a lot more rain to enjoy these next few weeks.....

 

[Kjp300]

Thanks. Nice to hear from you! My daughters house got flooded pretty bad. Over here now helping with the cleanup. So far not such a nice pool summer!

All I can say is stick with this site and follow their advice and methods. These guys saved my pool water last year and I haven’t been to the pool store on rt 224 in Canfield since or any pool store. They had my water all screwed up but they kept selling me stuff to fix it. Long story short I only had my pool for a year and a half and had to do a drain refill to fix my water. And these guys helped me through it. Testing myself and following TFP methods keeps my water Chrystal clear.

Good luck with the pool and let’s hope summer gets to our area soon!

 

[bmoreswim]

Your cover is fully supported by the water in the pool so long as the water is within about 1 foot of the skimmer, depending on how much slack your cover has in the fabric. So no issue whatsoever at normal operating levels. My concern when storms roll in is hail falling on exposed fabric around the edges, or our pool furniture blowing onto the cover and ripping it. It has pointy parts at the end of the arms. I leave it open or closed depending on how extreme I expect the wind to be. Our furniture stays put pretty well below 40 mph, but of course storm gusts can exceed that.

 

[Rocket J Squirrel]

I have been in this situation, also. Back when my pool was new to me in the winter of 2012, we had a major rainstorm which submerged my poor Little Giant cover pump. The poor thing was overwhelmed, but kept pumping until the water was gone. I was impressed. Just after that, the 6-year CA drought began and I didn't have to worry about that again.

My pool is big enough that I could easily use 2 cover pumps in situations like that. I just don't have an easy way to connect a second pump to AC power. But if I could, I would. Something to consider, @Kjp300 . At the very least, make sure you use a 3/4" hose and not a 1/2" one.

The thing with auto-covers is they have a taut end and a slack end. The slack end is where the spool and vault are. The shallow end is taut because the bar holds the end of the cover out of the water. So if a tear is going to occur due to water weight, that's where it will happen. So I put my cover pump about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way from the shallow end rather than centering it. I also run the hose down the center of the pool all the way to the deep end before letting the hose end out onto the deck. The idea is that the water weight in the hose helps channel the rainwater to the pump.

I would rather keep rainwater out of my pool. I've seen what happens when pool chemicals get too diluted. It's not easy seeing green.

 

[bmoreswim]

So I’m about an inch plus short on water in my pool. And with thunderstorms on tap for tomorrow I have the hose routed into the skimmer. If I think we are getting more than that I’ll pull it out. I use a 3/4” hose. You can use a 1 1/2” vacuum type hose with adapter also for quicker draining.

My fear sometimes is dilution versus a torn cover if really windy. I’ll take dilution in that case.

 

[Kjp300]

Thanks for all of the replies. Hadn't thought about a possible torn cover. You are right, I would rather deal with dilution than a torn cover. I have had my deck furniture blow on to the cover, but no tears so far. Guess I have been lucky.

I can easily get another cover pump. Our electrician put a dedicated outlet on our deck for the pump. So hooking another up to the power would not be problem. Also, if one pump goes out, I will always have a backup. So I will do that.

I also need to switch my hose to a 3/4 inch. Right now I have a 1/2 inch. My pool builder did not say one word about that. Thanks Rocket.